Following up on LLB’s post, Won’t Publish, Won’t Referee, Won’t Do Editorial Work: Professors boycotting Elsevier STM journals because of the Company’s business practices, see also The Chronicle’s recent article. It reports on Elsevier’s response to the boycott and interviews…
Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Won’t Publish, Won’t Referee, Won’t Do Editorial Work: Professors boycotting Elsevier STM journals because of the Company’s business practices
01
Feb
On Jan. 21, 2012, Timothy Gowers, Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Research Professor, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at Cambridge University, [web profile; Wikipedia entry] called for boycotting Elsevier because of the Company’s business practices with respect to its…
Legal Forms for the Price of a Song on iTunes?*
16
Jan
Legal forms, without the legal advice or assistance of a lawyer, continue to decline in value. As a pure digital product, a legal form follows the price curve of other digital goods eventually approaching zero. Several new start-ups in the legal industry will accelerate this trend.
Docracy is a new legal document start-up, founded by Matt Hall and John Watkinson, that grew out of a TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in New York City. The idea is to provide a free depository of legal documents that meets the needs of small business and start-ups which are crowd sourced by individuals who register for the site. The concept is to provide an open source site for legal documents in the same way that GitHub is an open source site for code. The company is venture funded First Round Capital, Vaizra Seed Fund, Quotidian Ventures and Rick Webb by a group of investors who see opportunity in disrupting the legal profession. The documents are largely flat forms (MS Word or Adobe .PDF File format), with quality control provided by the "community." It’s not clear yet what the business model for this site will be. Online signing of legal documents is coming.
A second legal document start-up has emerged out of the New York City start-up web scene called Paperlex . Paperlex is also targeting the small business market. This site will contain standardized legal documents that can be modified within the web browser. A user will be able to store all of their documents online in their own private and secure web space, will be able to collaborate with third parties, and will have the capacity to execute/sign documents online.
Rather than crowd sourcing the legal form content, Paperlex will provide their own libraries of standard forms. Alison Anthoine, Esq., the CEO and Founder, hopes to provide an accessible legal document portal that small business can easily use with their customers and other parties at a cost that is much less that the cost of a custom document crafted by an attorney. The business model for Paperlex is a Saas subscription service provided for a low monthly fee.
DocStoc is another document repository that includes not only collections of legal documents, but collections of documents in other categories as well, such as human resource, travel, and personal finance documents. Documents are for free or can be purchased. The site is also built on crowd sourcing principles. Users can contribute documents and sell them through the site, with DocStoc taking a cut. Most documents are not automated and are provided in either MS Word or Adobe .PDF file format. However, a new feature called "custom documents" enables the user to answer an online questionnaire which generates a more customized document. The user can view the assembled document before making a decision to purchase a monthly subscription.Monthly subscriptions range from $9.95 a month to $39.95. The site claims to have 20,000,000 users.
Docstoc, Inc., was founded by Jason Nazar (bio) and Alon Shwartz (bio). The company was selected in September of 2007 to debut its product at the prestigious TechCrunch40 Conference. The platform was subsequently launched to the public in October 2007.
Docstoc is a venture backed company (Rustic Canyon) and received funding from the co-founders/investors in MySpace, LowerMyBills, Mp3.com, PriceGrabber and Baidu.
WhichDraft.com , founded by Jason and Geoff Anderman, brothers, and both attorneys, offers free contracts that can be assembled within the web browser. Legal documents can be easily shared with third parties, and you can build your own Question and Answer templates. A nice feature enables a user the compare any two versions to see new and deleted text in the fee legal form.
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MyLawyer.com, our own consumer legal document portal, also offers legal document plans that are libraries of automated legal documents that when purchased in a bundle are less than the cost of a song on iTunes*.
In the nonprofit sector, LawHelp Interactive, a unit of LawHelp.org,with funding from the Legal Services Corporation, [ See Technology Initiative Grants ] has been working with a legal aid agencies nationwide to help the automate legal forms and publish them to state-wide legal form web sites which are available to any one within the state. The program is not limited to low income people. Hundreds of thousands of free legal forms are now created annually in more than 34 states. LSC has invested millions of dollars in the development of interactive legal form sites over the past 9 years.
Courts have also jumped into the free legal forms distribution game in response to the hoards of pro-se filers looking for free legal help. See for example: Online Court Assistance Program in Utah and Maryland Family Law Forms .
These free legal form web sites raise some interesting questions about the future role of the attorney and the changing nature of law practice. What role will the lawyer play in this changing environment? What is the impact of these relatively new sources of free or low cost legal forms on law practice, particularly the practice of solo and small law firms? Our own research provides support for the fact that solos and small law firms will continue to loose market share to these new providers.
"Unbundling" legal services by providing legal advice and legal document review for legal forms that clients secure from another source, may be a way of expanding access to the legal system, but it is also disruptive of law firm business models, just like iTunes* was disruptive of the bundled album approach of the music industry. Value is shifting from the lawyer to the consumer and non-lawyer providers of legal forms. I can hear the sucking sound as law firm business models collapse.
Some questions to think about:
- What risk do consumers and small business assume when they use a legal form without the advice or review of an attorney? The answer depends on the type of form, its complexity and the complexity of the transaction. If a user represents themselves in their own relatively simple name change, and their name gets changed by the court successfully, then one can assume that self-representation worked.
- But what about a Shareholder’s Agreement, where terms have to be negotiated, and the standard document doesn’t include the particular language required by the parties to reflect their intent? Should the parties now draft their own language? Should the parties simply ignore the need to include special language that reflects their intent hoping that there will be no situation in the future that will create a conflict between the shareholders because of a failure to include the language?
- Who should negotiate the terms of the Agreement? The lawyer or the principal? Who would do the better job? How much shuld be charged for a successful negotiation?
- How should the lawyer price services, when the client comes to the lawyer with their own standardized form and asks the lawyer to review it?
- Will the lawyer refuse to serve the client, unless the client uses the lawyer’s form or document?
- How important is the insurance that a lawyer provides that the document or form is valid for the purpose intended, accurate, and reflects the intent of the parties?
- Lets assume that the 85% of the legal form content in many categories of documents is identical. [ This is what Kingsley Martin from KIIAC has concluded and he should know ! ] But 15% consisted of critical variable language not susceptible to easy document automation. Should the attorney charge on a fixed price for the entire project as if she drafted the entire agreement, although she only worked on several paragraphs? If the agreement fails because the variable paragraphs are incorrect for the particular case, why shouldn’t the attorney charge as if she he worked on the entire agreement?
If you have thought about these questions, and have some ideas on the impact of free legal forms on the legal industry, please share them here.
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*iTunes is a trademark of Apple, Inc.
Round-Up of Law Practitioner Blogs
08
Jan
Sacramento Real Estate Lawyer Blog http://www.sacramentorealestatelawyerblog.com/ http://www.sacramentorealestatelawyerblog.com/index.xml Discusses real estate cases, news, and related business matters in Sacramento, California. Published by The Law Office of Kristina M. Reed Whistleblower Qui Tam Law Blog http://www.whistleblowerquitamlaw.com/ http://www.whistleblowerquitamlaw.com/index.xml Examines whistleblower cases, news, and…
Dear Santa, Please Give AALL a Clue on How to Make Money
22
Dec
Santa, I think AALL needs a business plan to make money in publishing that is not based on ad revenues (which by and large isn’t work all that well, anyway). How about reasonably priced AALL imprint p- and e-books on…
When “The Law” Breaks the Law!
( From “How to Win in Court” Course )
Click or Call 866-LAW-EASY Toll Free!
How to Control those who Control YOU!
The Wild Wild West was won by a very small number of folks clever enough to bring the following essential with them to establish “Law & Order” in the unsettled plains and mountains west of the Mississippi:
England, did you say?
Yup!
In that single book (you can get a Kindle or Nook version for free) written before our Declaration of Independence, they found enough common-sense law to settle towns, bring railroads, jail bandits, and hang rustlers.
Contrary to what you’ve seen on TV and in the movies, it wasn’t faster guns and bigger fists that settled lawless cowtowns like Tombstone and Dodge City. It was the support of local townsfolk who wanted law and believed in the principles of Justice found in those two books: the Bible and Blackstone.
We each face the threat of similar lawlessness. Yes, today! Perhaps especially today!
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When “the law” is an outlaw, there’s only one remedy.
The Rules!
Did you know the Rules of Evidence that control all civil and criminal proceedings in our state and federal courts comprise less than 30 pages in the official rule books?
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These are the rules YOU can use to control every judge, every lawyer, every bank, every giant corporation, or even your nexty door neighbor or business partner, and every state and federal agency trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
Why be needlessly robbed of your rights by not knowing this handful of rules or how to use them to stop the rich and powerful from running your world?
Your legal problems today can be solved the same way western settlers brought lawlessness to its knees in the prairies and remote Rocky Mountain regions more than a century ago, as did those who settled our Eastern cities and towns more than two centuries ago.
The Rules control lawlessness!
Once YOU know the rules and how to use them to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers, Justice is Yours!
The Rules of Evidence and Rules of Procedure protect you and your children from lawless legal officials, crooked lawyers, corrupt judges, scheming bankers, incompetent doctors, rival siblings, and everyone else who does you harm or seeks to do so.
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You have a remedy at law … once you know how to the rules.
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THE RULES OF COURT!
The Rules of Evidence and Procedure RULE the courts!
This is true only for those who know how to use them!
The Rules of Court are the People’s power to control our government and command our leaders to protect us and address our grievances with court orders that can command even those in the highest offices, the richest of the rich, the biggest of the big.
The Rules are what the 4th of July is all about!
The Rules don’t just give us “rights”.
The Rules give “power to enforce our rights”!
That’s how the West was won!
Knowing how to use the Rules is how you win!
www.Jurisdictionary.com
Posted in Electronic Resource, Going to Court, Law School News & Views, Products & Services, U.S. Courts